Icy rain closes Moscow's airport

MOSCOW - Icy rain on Sunday shut down Moscow's largest airport for nearly 15 hours, coated roads with ice and left more than 300,000 people and 14 hospitals without electricity in winter.

The rain struck the city Saturday night. Workers were scrambling Sunday to restore the power supply after heavy ice snapped power lines, Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said.

Moscow's Domodedovo airport closed Sunday morning after it lost power. No planes were allowed to land or take off for 15 hours until the airport opened for outbound flights to several domestic destinations. The airport's full power supply had not been restored by Sunday evening.

Moscow's other two major airports, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo, remained open but experienced severe delays.

Moscow motorists woke up to find their cars covered with an inch of ice.

Power lines across the region, loaded down with ice, snapped at the slightest touch, disrupting public transport and suburban trains. Health officials urged Moscow residents to stay indoors and not to risk walking on the city's icy streets.

In Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, polar swimmers took part Sunday in the traditional Christmas swim in the Vltava River.

Tour boat operators halted cruises on the Seine River in Paris because of unusually high waters following heavy snowfall.

Some U.S.-bound flights from Europe were canceled because of bad weather in the eastern U.S.